In doing so, they formed the great country that became the United States of America. There are many ways that the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution are similar in the ways they lay out the government. One example of this is that the Magna Carta forced limitations on the King of England, and established a parliament form of government, to represent the people. This form of government split the lawmaking between an institution of individuals, and the King. This prevented the King from creating selfish laws as he pleased.
Outline Although the founding of the Constitution was a revolutionary, positive turning-point in American history, the US Constitution has a few unconstitutional and democratic shortcomings. Introduction In order to understand the shortcomings of democracy of the US Constitution, is it is important to know the background of its’ founding and how each article serves our country. Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, asserts the importance of having the image of a democracy without its real substance. There seems to have been a very strong opposition towards democracy at the Constitutional Convention, although the framers were in the midst of creating democratic principles to appeal to the majority of the country.
The House of Representatives would be made up of officials voted in every 2 years, and whose numbers are determined proportionate to the population of the state- for example, Alaska being a small state, only has 1 representative, whereas California, being the most populous state, currently has 53 representatives. The Senate is elected every 6 years, and each state has 2 representatives. Legislation must pass between both houses with a 2/3 majority, enhancing the checks and balances within the legislature. Congress exercises eight significant checks on the Executive, including: the power to amend or block legislation, to override the President’s veto with a 2/3 majority in both houses, power of the purse- all money the president wants to spend on his policies must be approved by Congress, the power to declare war, to ratify treaties, the Senate has the power to confirm appointments made by the President to the Judiciary and the Executive branch, e.g justices, cabinet members, heads of important agencies such as the CIA, the power of investigation, and the ultimate power of impeachment. However, despite this range of powers, we have seen Congress’ power decline since the start of the Constitution.
Democracy means “power to the people” and Source A suggests that this is what is happening and the people are happy with the voting system. Whereas Source B suggests that the British people feel this voting system isn’t representative of the populations as “most people
Two for each state History Based on Virginia Plan Based on New Jersey Plan Speaker Elected by the House of Representatives. The current Speaker of the House is John Boehner (R-Ohio) Vice President Joe Biden is President of the Senate. He only votes in case of a tie. When the
The New Jersey Plan proposed for a one-house legislature in which each state would cast only one vote. While the Virginia Plan called for a Congress of two houses in which the total number of delegates would be divided among the states according to the free population of each state. The decision between these two proposals is known as the Great Comprise. The delegates suggested the creation of a two-house legislature composed of a House of Representatives and a Senate. However, to satisfy those who supported the Virginia Plan, members of the House were to be allotted to the states based on population.
To begin, there were such huge numbers of various thoughts that came into play making the Constitution of the United States. The Founding Fathers brought a significant number of various types of government for our new nation becoming free from Britain. They needed to improve an administration than what Britain was. However, they needed a legislature that would work for a considerable length of time after as well. So a chosen few were helped make this conceivable, the Founding Fathers.
The Magna Carta acknowledged some of the basic human rights such as property rights, protection from over taxation, and the rights of due process. Essentially, the Magna Carta was the beginning stages for our modern democracy, a document that would start limiting the power of the king and expressing the freedom of men. The government is divided into three bodies within the Constitution: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches. The first article in the Constitution focuses on the establishing of Congress, which immediately shows the authors' view on the significance of the representative side of government. Congress would compose of elected officials from all states, and have the power to propose and pass laws.
This means the President can reject a law. But, the Legislative Branch can also check the president. They can do this to limit his power of rejecting too many laws. Their way of doing this is to override the Executive’s veto. They do this with a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.
It can be argued that FPTP has created a clear two party system. This can be illustrated because post-war only Labour and Conservatives have been in power. Labour or Conservatives have been the government every election because they have a lot of support throughout the UK, and therefore come first in many constituencies. To form a government, a party must have the majority of seats throughout the UK, which Labour or Conservatives always do. In 2005, the Liberal Democrats had 22% of the overall vote in the UK, sharing, but because of the FPTP system they only won 62 seats out of the 646 constituencies in the UK, this shows this system as clearly an unfair.